John Malloy-Private Dick 3 (the Blackmailed Beauty)

       N +*John Malloy-Private Dick*+ 3
             (The Blackmailed Beauty)

                  (John Gets Nosey)

This hot tamale of a raven-haired glitterami has miles of style to burn, but this babe's on the hook to some blackmailing sleazebag of a vice cop, big time!

"So, give, dollface," I say, taking a burning swig of my Johnny Walker. "How'd this dirt-bag copper put the bite on you?'

The gorgeous dame looked down and frowned. "Where shall I begin?,"                          said she.

I took another comforting pull on my jingle juice and chuckled. "I wish I had a sawbuck for every time some jane asked me that question! I'm supposed to say, just start at the beginning, according to shamus handbook."

She looked flustered. "I certainly do not want to be contributing to any mundane private detective cliches'," she huffed. "What is it you would have me do, then?"

I grinned like a fool and said, "Why don't you just start at the beginning, dollface?"

She got a series of looks on her movie-star puss like she didn't know whether to get mad or feel sorry for me. Finally, she trained those big, brown peepers on me, and a ruby-lipped smile slowly uncovered the whitest pearlies I've ever seen outside of a toothpaste ad.

"I can see I'm going to have to have problems with you, young man! The beginning is where I shall begin, if you have no further objections."

"Shoot the works," said I. I'm all ears and eyeballs."

The black-haired beauty came out with this throaty laugh and said, "The way your eyes keep undressing me certainly indicates that your eyes are functioning normally."

"I warned you about my lack of table manners, kid. I never really got fully housebroke. But tell me about this dirty vice cop. When did he first darken your door?*

I reached out and offered her the bottle, but she waved me off. "The first time I saw that disgusting Sergeant Withers was when I answered the door, the morning after I had spent the night with Miss Hepburn at her home in Beverly Hills."

I cleared my throat. "I gotta ask you, Lana, how is Katharine Hepburn in the sack, if that Isn't being too personL?"

She pretended to look shocked, with just a hint of a twinkle in her eye. "Why Mister Malloy!" she chided, "I barely know you! Why would I answer such a personal and inappropriate question?"

"I'm gonna level with you, Lana," I start. "The mental picture of a steamin' hot dish like you gettin' busy with a big-shot movie queen like Katharine Hepburn gets my motor running like a hopped-up Deusy! I just gotta know!....Was she any good in bed?"

She thought about it for what seemed like hours. She finally smiled and winked. "To be honest with you, John....I think I was a lot better at it than she was, and she has had dozens of women, from what I hear."

"My train of thought sorta got detailed there," I hear myself croak. "What were we yappin' about, anyway?"